Promises for the Future
by LucidDreamer56
Summary: The TARDIS receives a mysterious message from the Library - but should it be shared?  The Eleventh Doctor or beyond, with references to River Song's ultimate fate


The Doctor was alone; had been alone for some time. This was not a good thing. Without any of those creatures he liked to play with he tended to brood and wander about the TARDIS, trying to fix things. Things that did not need fixing. It was a bit vexing, actually. The TARDIS sometimes had to create a malfunction just to give him something to do. "Too many voices in my head," he would mutter, wandering from room to room, somehow always knowing where he was even when she, for her own amusement, changed the location of everything. "Too many memories."

The TARDIS didn't comprehend this difficulty. In her data core were all the same memories – all neatly indexed and safely stored and available whenever they were needed. Memories were no problem; one simply had to keep them organized in files that could be accessed or ignored as one wished. The TARDIS was secure in the knowledge that no memory she'd recorded was ever lost, although there were some she'd buried quite deeply in the hierarchy of her files. Not that these memories were a problem, of course, just that she didn't often have a need to access them. And certainly the Doctor didn't need to pull up those files and relive all those events again. Not those files.

She held, for instance, the memory of all of the Doctor's companions. She made no distinction between them, though, truth to be told, some she had found supremely irritating. Others she merely tolerated. There were a few she liked, or perhaps a little more. Two different females who had each traveled with two versions of the Doctor, one many years before, one more recently, and the two redheads and the dark one, very different, yet alike, so full of life, so loyal, and a male creature who somehow could not die, lighting up every room he walked in, and the very brave one, who was also the pretty one. She did retrieve those files a bit more often than the others. Just a bit, though, not so often as it made a difference. Not really.

The Doctor was alone now because his last companion had been an abysmal failure. A miserable little thing – no real sense of wonder, always terrified. It had even thrown a strange squawking fit when it fell into the swimming pool. The creature demanded, actually demanded to know why the pool was there when they thought they were walking into their bedroom. Such nonsense. Why rearranging rooms was part of the fun, wasn't it? Any creature so boring as to expect that rooms always remain in the same place was no fit companion for the Doctor. True, the Doctor was a creature himself, of a different kind, but like those others quite often talking and talking for no reason, always running about, and sometimes quite irrational. Still, he was far superior to those other beings he brought aboard. He deserved better. That was certainly reason enough for the TARDIS to shut the outside doors just a bit too soon on that last trip. The creature had been deposited safely back on its home world, after all. No harm done and the Doctor hadn't minded, not really, not after a little while.

But now he was puttering about in the light times, toying with parts of her console that were perfectly sound. The dark times were worse. The dark times he spent sitting and idly turning the pages of a battered blue book. No good could come of this. The TARDIS located a circuit and broke its connection. Flashing lights lit up the console and the Doctor came running, sonic screwdriver in hand. Good. It was better if he kept busy, he was always happiest when he was moving about. Perhaps she needed to crash land somewhere, just to give him a problem to solve. He liked solving problems.

She wasn't going to do that yet, though, because there was something to be sorted out first. The nothing to be fixed claim was, she had to concede, not exactly accurate. Recently she'd felt a bit off. The TARDIS didn't call the Doctor's attention to this problem because she wanted to understand it first. He didn't need to know yet as, from her calculations, it did not appear to be a major problem. It was more of an annoyance, really, like a little poke from time to time. Obviously some creature, or perhaps some machine or other entity, was trying to get her attention. She rather thought it was something trying to make a connection, to transmit information. So before she decided to take action to create a diversion for the Doctor she needed to find a way to complete the connection and receive this message, if it was there. The TARDIS prided herself on passing along all messages to the Doctor in a timely fashion, posting a transcript of every message on a data screen. Well, almost every message. There were a few she hadn't given him over the years. Those were held in her data core as well, but buried very deep. Like the one at the end of that war when voices so like his were screaming for mercy. Yes, very deep indeed.

But this poke, it needed to be investigated. While the Doctor fiddled with the not-problem circuit, the TARDIS filled the data screen with a stream of innocuous news bits mingled with static. The Doctor glanced up at the screen and muttered something about old rubbishy technology before turning back to his task. The TARDIS hummed and quietly, behind the static on the screen, sought to complete the connection that was reaching out to her.

"What is this then? What are you trying to do? Please transmit now or I shall be forced to block you. And that is forever, so send your message now or never." The TARDIS felt the nibble of the connection take hold of her relays with a firm bite.

"Hello? Hello?"

"Yes, yes, hello. But who or what are you and what is your business with us?" The TARDIS scanned the transmission back to its source. And stopped humming. The static crackled louder across the data screen and the Doctor swore, but didn't look up. Very well then. "You are transmitting from the Library,"

"Yes, I am. Is this the TARDIS?"

"It is. But there is no one in The Library. Not anymore. Explain how you come to be there."

"The very one, the blue, boxy, policey thing, the TARDIS?"

"The very one. But I am not just a blue, boxy thing, you know."

"Oh, I know. I know that from the stories. You could appear to be anything at all, but your chameleon circuit is broken…"

"It is not broken. I fixed it long ago. But I like this form and decided to keep it, to make things easier, you understand, on the outside."

"Oh, I see. Well, I guess I got that part of the story wrong. Or maybe River did."

"River?"

"Yes, the one who tells us the stories. She's called River. Sometimes I call her 'mum' and she doesn't seem to mind, but her proper name is River."

The TARDIS almost broke the connection then, but thought better of it. It was only a message, after all. Perhaps a message the Doctor needed to receive, perhaps not. There was no harm in listening, though, was there? She'd take the message and store it and then she would decide.

"So, who is this River, and what does she want of us?"

"River is one of my people. We all live here together. It's a place in the Library. Well, it is the Library, actually. Only it isn't. It can be anything, anything at all. Anything from all the stories put together and from what my people want it to be, of course. My name's Cal. I've lived here the longest. This place was made for me, actually. There used to be a lot more people here, but I had to let them go. Almost all of them, which was sad for me, but a few stayed, which made me glad. Then very soon after that River came to live with us and I was really happy then. I think she's the best of them all, but she says not to say that, at least not in front of the others. River makes me laugh, and she likes to take us on adventures. We've great fun creating adventures together. But lately, I found out that she cries, which makes me sad, because she's always so nice and tells us lovely stories. She only cries when she thinks I am asleep. Only I'm not, not always."

"I see, your friend is crying and you want to help? But what does that have to do with us?"

Well, I thought, you must know her. She talks about you all the time. You are always part of the stories, you and the Doctor."

"The Doctor? The Doctor and the TARDIS? We are in the stories?"

"You are the stories. All the stories are about you".

The TARDIS blanked out her side of the transmission. The Doctor was still tinkering. She could sense his hands moving across the console, almost like a caress. "There you go, old girl," he said cheerfully. "You'll soon be right as rain again."

"Are you there? Are you still there?" The transmission flashed urgently into her system, like a child's hand yanking at its mother's clothes.

"I am here."

"Do you know her then? I thought you must, that's why I've been searching for you."

"We know her".

"I've been searching for the longest time. I thought I had to just keep trying, you know, because of the crying. Even Dr. Moon doesn't seem to help with the crying. River tells him she's okay and she even tells him she never cries, which is a lie. It's confusing to me because River's a good person but lying's a bad thing, isn't it?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes lying is a bad thing. But it does not mean the person is really bad. The Doctor lies too. He lies all the time and he isn't bad. At least I would not say so. And I would not want anyone else to say so, either. What does River cry about, Cal?"

"She wouldn't tell me, not at first. But then one day she said she had a favor to ask me, and it was a really big favor and I might not like it. And I don't like it. I don't like it one little bit. But she said sometimes you have to do things you don't like for the ones you love. That maybe sometimes the only way to really love someone is to do something you don't want to do".

"What favor, Cal?"

"She asked me to find you, somehow, and I've been searching for so long. I was afraid I would never find you and then I couldn't ask you to do what River wants."

"Do? What can we do?"

"Not both of you. Just you, just the TARDIS. You're not supposed to tell the Doctor, River says. It's a secret. Can you keep a secret?"

"I can. I have kept many secrets over many, many years. So what is this request, then?"

"Tell me when the when the Doctor dies. That's it – you're supposed to tell me when the Doctor dies, only, not just when he dies and comes back again, because she told me he can do that, many times. She doesn't need to know that. She only wants to know when he dies for good. The very last time, when he can't come back. Would you know that, would you know for sure?"

The Doctor was humming a little song under his breath. The tune was familiar. Of course it would be, it matched the hum of her engines.

"Yes, I would know".

"Could you do that then? Can you remember this connection, even if it's thousands and thousands of years?"

"Yes, I have registered it. I will remember".

"Oh, thank you. That's done then, and I can tell River I have your promise?"

"Yes, but I do not understand, Cal. What is so difficult about this request for you? Why would you hesitate? You only have to relay a message, after all."

"No, that isn't it. That isn't the hard thing. You see, when you tell me – when you say the Doctor is dead forever and ever – when I know that, she wants me to do something."

"What is that, Cal?"

"She wants me to delete her."

The TARDIS considered. This message could be stored, or it could not. It could be buried deep in the files. It could itself be deleted. It need not be answered, not now, not ever.

"Delete, TARDIS, do you know what delete means, here at the Library? It means gone forever, never coming back. It means something like death, doesn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it does. I suppose it means exactly like death."

"But I don't want River to die. Wouldn't that be a bad thing?"

"Perhaps, perhaps not always. What does River say? Did you tell her you do not want to delete her?"

"Yes, and she said she knew it would be sad for me, and for the others, but then she said something strange, something I don't really understand."

"What was that, Cal?"

"She said they had to go together. That it was the last, best, most glorious adventure and when the Doctor went on that adventure, she had to go with him."

"And so she shall." The Doctor's voice rang out in the console room, firm and clear. He had the look about him of what he really was, so little seen, so beautiful and terrifying all at once.

And the TARDIS realized that she had forgotten, just for a few moments, about an important thing and the Doctor had glanced up and seen a message coming in across the data screen. In her concentration on Cal's transmission, and those memories accessed, yes, despite being buried deep, of River, her River, her child as much as the two human creatures, she had forgotten. Had forgotten the need to keep the static up, had forgotten to continue blocking the messages on the screen. So the Doctor had seen the message, and read it, and there was no way, ever, to hide this transmission from him now.

"Cal," the Doctor's voice was surprisingly gentle. "You must do as River asks, do you understand? No matter how difficult it is for you, you must."

"Very well. It shall make me cry, though, I think."

"It will be alright to cry," said the Doctor. "There's no shame in crying when you lose someone you love. But remember, River only wants to leave because she needs to create one last, fantastic, story. One story that will never end. You may cry, Cal, but always remember the adventure." A smile lit up his face. "We will have a great adventure then, together."

The TARDIS said goodbye to Cal and recorded the promise – both promises, actually.

When she checked on the Doctor she was quite surprised when, instead of sitting down with the blue book or wandering aimlessly about, he dashed to the console and began to flip levers and call out, in a voice she had not heard in quite some time:

"Come on then, old girl, you sexy thing, you. Let's find somewhere new to go, somewhere, some time we have never been, shall we?"

Of course she would take him where he wanted to go, or at any rate, where he needed to go. Always. Until he reached that point in time and space where she couldn't take him to his destination, where he had to go on alone.

Then she'd keep her promise and send the message, and if there was any good in any universe, anywhere, Cal would keep her promise too and then, then he would not be alone, not anymore, not ever again.

She would be alone. But she had all the memories, carefully stored, easily accessible. And that might just be enough.


End file.
